She looked over to Mr. Cooper’s worktable, but he wasn’t there either. The dress form next to his workstation, however, now displayed a beautifully finished pelisse bodice. Even without having been pressed, it looked exquisite.So he was talented as well.As well as what? As well as being handsome and having an eye. Why did he persist in saying things calculated to annoy her? Were it not for that, she could almost like him, Pauline thought. No, not like exactly. Despite his badly judged words, something drew her to him.
As if he’d been conjured by her thoughts, Mr. Cooper came back into the workroom carrying two cups of steaming liquid, followed by Aloysius and Mr. Kenton.Coffee!Pauline thought. He handed one first to Lady Bridlington with a nod then gave the other to Pauline. The look in his eyes. There was somethingabout it. A little furrow of concern between his eyebrows, and a soft expression she’d never seen before. “Thank you,” Pauline said, accepting the cup with a shy glance up at him. She took a sip and closed her eyes. The hot liquid warmed her whole body. Or was it only that which had such an effect?
“I hope you don’t mind I let you sleep.” Mr. Cooper said, still standing next to her as though he expected some kind of reply.
Pauline flashed him a quick, nervous smile and then stared down into the steaming black liquid as if she would find the answer to a knotty problem swirling in its center. “No, of course not.” To avoid having to meet his gaze, Pauline nodded toward the bodice Mr. Cooper had sewn while everyone else was sleeping. “You did a bang-up job on it.”
He looked over his shoulder at it in an assessing way. “That’s the hard part. The skirt is just miles and miles of seams. Miss Dawkins…” He stopped, as though he didn’t quite know what to say, or hadn’t decided at any rate.
Pauline never got to hear what would next come out of his mouth, whether it would be another thoughtless quip or something else—something she found herself actually hoping he would say—because heavy, rapid footsteps approached the door to the workroom and everyone turned to look at it.
A moment later it burst open to reveal Johnathan Meyer himself, still in his greatcoat. The barrel-chested, bewhiskered tailor drew himself up and swept his gaze around the room, his florid face darkening and eyebrows drawing together. Deep breaths strained the buttons on his perfectly tailored coat, which Pauline thought had probably been made to measurements that had been taken when he was a great deal slimmer. “What is the meaning of this! Who are you, and why are you in my shop?”
Pauline stood quickly and would have approached him, but Mr. Cooper stopped her and went himself. “Mr. Meyer, I’m sorry, but Madame Pauline needed our help for an urgentcommission, and I thought, since the shop was all but closed for the night, we could work here.”
“Oh you did, did you!” Meyer stepped past Cooper and into the middle of the room. He caught sight of the bodice and strode over to it. “Where did you get this merino? I thought we were out of it. Have you been stealing from the warehouse? And Miss Dawkins, our arrangement does not give you the right to take over my premises!”
By now Mr. Meyer’s face was nearly purple with rage. Cooper started to speak again, but this time Lady Bridlington stopped him. “The cloth was not stolen, Mr. Meyer,” she said.
He whirled around to face Augusta and was about to yell at her when he noticed her distended belly. The color drained from his face and he said, “Get this lady out of here! It’s not seemly. You must return to your husband, Ma’am, without delay.”
“Do you know whothis ladyis, Mr. Meyer?” Pauline said in icy accents.
“I don’t care!” he said. “Who gave you permission to invade my premises?”
Pauline squared as for a fight, ready to go to battle and remind Meyer that they had a partnership, and that the woman he was treating with such insolence was none other than the Countess of Bridlington.
But Cooper stepped in front of her again and said, “I did, Mr. Meyer. Don’t blame Miss Dawkins. It was me.”
“That settles it! You may leave my employ, Mr. Cooper. And I will not give you a reference, so you cannot expect another tailor in this town to hire you. Insolent, presumptuous…” He opened his mouth to utter a third adjective, but instead encompassed everyone in his final directive. “Get out. I expect this room to be empty by the time I come back in ten minutes.”
Pauline marched right up to him, her hands on her hips and said, “Mr. Meyer! I don’t think you can possibly know?—”
Augusta waddled up, took hold of her arm and squeezed it, cutting her off in mid-sentence. “No, Pauline, he’s right. We should not be using his workroom. We must take our work elsewhere.”
“Hmmph!” Meyer said. He whirled around and was about to stride out as abruptly as he’d come in, but he found the door barred by a tall, elegant man in a many-caped greatcoat leaning on a walking stick, whose eyes opened wide at the spectacle before him. “And who are you sir? The shop is not presently open for fittings. If you would make an appointment at the front.”
George Lanyon, Earl of Bridlington, took off his hat and looked down his nose at the agitated master tailor. “I am not here to be fitted. I am here to collect my wife, Lady Bridlington.”
Meyer froze. “Y-your wife?” He turned to Augusta, suddenly embarrassed. “You’re…”
Phyllida squeezed herself between George and the door frame to enter the room from behind him and said, “My lady, I could see you was suffering, and you should be at home, so instead of giving ‘im your message I fetched his lordship back with me.”
“It’s no matter, Phyllida,” Augusta said to the dresser, who was wringing her hands and darting her gaze nervously around to everyone. After sending Phyllida a reassuring smile, she said to George, “Have you brought the barouche?”
He nodded.
“Good. We can put everything we need in it and take it all back to Bruton Street. If you would be so good as to help Mr. Cooper and Aloysius gather everything up, darling.”
Meyer, who had been nervously clenching and unclenching his hands, said, “I didn’t mean, Your Ladyship, I meant no disrespect. If I had known?—”
At this Augusta turned the full force of her fury on Meyer. “If you had known I wasn’t simply a seamstress, you would have treated me with decency. Well, these people are all just as worthy of your respect as I am, if not more so, because they have skills and talents I do not possess.” While she spoke, Aloysius, Cooper, Mr. Kenton, and Lord Bridlington gathered up all the bolts of material and partly finished gown pieces and whisked them out to the waiting Bridlington barouche.
CHAPTER 10
Cooper had felt as if he was going to cast up his accounts the moment Mr. Meyer stepped into the room. He didn’t think he had been doing anything wrong—after all, Miss Dawkins was in partnership with Mr. Meyer, and the workroom was empty. But clearly, he’d misjudged. Or had it been Mr. Gordon who did that? Whoever it was, they were in the basket now.
And, now, his basket was worse than anyone’s. He’d lost his job. Meyer would be sure to blacken his name throughout the tailors’ establishments in London. What would he do? He supposed he’d have to go back to farm labor. He’d worked so hard to get away from that, to establish himself in a trade he was passionate about. Now, it was all for nothing.
